Enemy Of The State

What does Ron Paul’s rise say about American politics, and what does it mean for the two major parties? In Comment this week, Nicholas Lemann examines the implications of the Texas Congressman’s ideology:

Yet what is and isn’t part of the mainstream is something that political campaigns determine. And the truth is that Paul’s vision reveals—with candor and specificity—what the G.O.P.’s rhetorical hostility to government would mean if it were rigorously put into practice. A minimal state, without welfare provisions for the unemployed. A quarter of a million federal workers—as a first installment—joining those unemployed. Foreign policy and national defense reduced to a few ballistic-missile submarines. The civil-rights legislation of the nineteen-sixties repealed as so much unwarranted government intrusion. As for the financial crisis, Paul would have countenanced no regulation that might have prevented it, no government stabilization of the financial system after it happened, and no special help for working people hurt by it. This is where the logic of government-shrinking leads.

Will Paul’s campaign force the Republican Party even further to the right, or will it allow the G.O.P. to continue its tradition of small-government rhetoric and big-government Administrations? Can President Obama overcome the Republican intransigence that Paul has helped to inspire? Read the full Comment, and share your thoughts below.

Illustration by Tom Bachtell.

The New Yorker offers a signature blend of news, culture, and the arts. It has been published since February 21, 1925.